Notice problems your client doesn't. On a plant tour, Scott Morris, owner of Florence, Ala.-based distributorship Proforma Solutions, saw problems with his client's production process that the client wasn't aware of. "This is how they've always done it, for years and years," he says. By bringing a simpler solution to the client's attention, Proforma Solutions gained business and client loyalty.
Save clients money. Show your customers or prospects how you can help them be more efficient, reduce costs or save money. "People buy for different reasons," Morris says. "Some buy because they like you. Others don't care if they like you, but you can solve a problem for them. They're under pressure to reduce costs and if you can help them do that, that's good."
Don't push it. "The days of going in and pushing a product on someone have been gone for a long time," Morris says. "Whenever I go into a customer's office, I'm not looking to sell anything. I don't say, 'I have a product here that is going to change your life.' I want to know what their problems are and how can we make them better."
Distributorship Proforma Solutions, Florence, Ala., held about 10 percent of a textile manufacturer's business until owner Scott Morris arrived for a plant tour one afternoon.
During that meeting, Morris agreed to provide tags with Mylar-reinforced strips. They were to be delivered blank. Yet, taking the job changed everything: "Within two to three months of completing the Mylar job, we had all of their business--or at least 95 percent of their business," Morris says.
New Tag Simplifies Production
The story begins with a tour of the textile plant. The company used production labels to identity 10-ft.-wide bundles of material used to make T-shirts. "They have to monitor where all that material goes because it has to be cut differently and in different sizes," Morris says. Tracking the materials' production was difficult. A continuous form label was placed on the bundle and eventually would become its shipping label. A piece of copy paper also was tacked onto the bundle with a safety pin. The paper
included information about what needed to be cut from the bundle, how many T-shirts it would yield and more. Employees in each department would pull off a ticket and place it on the copy paper to indicate their completed portion of the job. The process continued until the job reached the shipping department, which would place the T-shirts in boxes, remove the label and place the label on the box.
Morris saw a problem immediately. The production ticket, adhered with only a safety pin, constantly came off, causing confusion because so many different materials were involved. Morris questioned the client about the process and learned he wasn't satisfied. "I suggested he use a stronger piece of paper. And rather than piece rate tickets onto it, I recommended a thermal tag with a hole in it that is reinforced with a Mylar strip," Morris says. "That way, they wouldn't have to worry about it coming off. Plus, they could print bar code information on the tag. Once the bar code is scanned, production managers would know where the job stood in the production process."
The client agreed enthusiastically, Morris says. The company already owned a bar code reader, which it used to track inventory. Morris suggested using 100# tag stock and rope or twine to tie the ticket securely to the bundled material. "My client ended up saving a lot of time and money and it worked out good for us, too. They've become a good client," he says.
--Cheryl Dangel Cullen
Scott Morris, owner of Florence, Ala.-based distributorship Proforma Solutions, convinced a textile manufacturer to monitor its production process with 100# thermal tags with a Mylar strip for reinforcement and a hole for hanging. The client, which previously used an antiquated system of continuous form labels and copy paper, now prints tracking information on the tags with a bar code reader.
